Vaughn Tolle said:
Well, turning to something a bit closer to home, and a tragedy in and of itself (but not even close to the VPI one). Reading the sports section today, I learned that the newly hired WSU basketball coach was on a trip to obtain recommitments from the athletes recruited by Mr. Turgeon; he was watching one of them play in a pick up game, when the player suddenly collapsed on the floor and died. That had to be a really bad day for Mr. Marshall.
From my understanding, the young man in question was from Cameroon, and wanted to attend WSU to obtain a degree in International Business. Listening on the way in today, I heard reference to a few other native Africans who had come to the U.S. to play basketball and obtain a college education who also had died under similar circumstances. This raises a question: is there something wrong with the physical exams given these folks? Is there something congenital affecting these potential college basketball players?
Perhaps trivial, in light of the VPI tragedy; but, for one family, tragedy in its own right.
From my understanding, the young man in question was from Cameroon, and wanted to attend WSU to obtain a degree in International Business. Listening on the way in today, I heard reference to a few other native Africans who had come to the U.S. to play basketball and obtain a college education who also had died under similar circumstances. This raises a question: is there something wrong with the physical exams given these folks? Is there something congenital affecting these potential college basketball players?
Perhaps trivial, in light of the VPI tragedy; but, for one family, tragedy in its own right.
Dubya said:
Interesting. I hadn't heard that news yet. That does seem rather coincidental. Presumably they haven't done an autopsy (yet). I'm curious to see if it might be the same cause as the other African players? Could a climate / environment change cause that much stress on the body that extraneous activities such as basketball just cause it to overload and quit?
Very strange. Thank you for sharing, Vaughn.
~Dubya
Very strange. Thank you for sharing, Vaughn.
~Dubya
Vaughn Tolle said:
Dubya, don't know. I am aware of some studies a few years ago centering around Marfans (sp?) Syndrome that results in abnormal cardiac size, in a not positive way, that accompanies primarily tall people with large hands, feet. I wonder if this might be involved? Don't know, just raising the issue.
lindainks55 said:
Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting yesterday, "for his revelations that President Bush often used 'signing statements' to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws."
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/national-reporti...
Here are the stories that won Savage his prize:
http://www.boston.com/news/specials/savage_signing...
And here's a question White House correspondents should be asking themselves today: How did an investigative reporter at a regional newspaper end up winning an award on their beat?
According to Globe Editor Martin Baron, the answer is: "What Charlie does and the reason he won this richly deserved Pulitzer is because he covered what the White House does, not just what it says."
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/national-reporti...
Here are the stories that won Savage his prize:
http://www.boston.com/news/specials/savage_signing...
And here's a question White House correspondents should be asking themselves today: How did an investigative reporter at a regional newspaper end up winning an award on their beat?
According to Globe Editor Martin Baron, the answer is: "What Charlie does and the reason he won this richly deserved Pulitzer is because he covered what the White House does, not just what it says."
lindainks55 said:
David Johnston writes in the New York Times: "The former top aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has told Congressional investigators that Mr. Gonzales was 'inaccurate,' or 'at least not complete' in asserting that he had no role in the deliberations about individual United States attorneys who were later dismissed, a Democratic senator said Monday.
"The statements by D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Mr. Gonzales, during an interview with investigators on Sunday, were made public as the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday in which Mr. Gonzales was to appear to defend his actions in the dismissals. . . .
"In his interview, Mr. Sampson said under oath that Mr. Gonzales took part in discussions last fall about David C. Iglesias, who was removed as the United States attorney in New Mexico, as well as in a June 2006 meeting that addressed concerns about Carol C. Lam, the United States attorney ousted from her job in San Diego, said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. . . ."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/washington/17att...
"The statements by D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Mr. Gonzales, during an interview with investigators on Sunday, were made public as the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday in which Mr. Gonzales was to appear to defend his actions in the dismissals. . . .
"In his interview, Mr. Sampson said under oath that Mr. Gonzales took part in discussions last fall about David C. Iglesias, who was removed as the United States attorney in New Mexico, as well as in a June 2006 meeting that addressed concerns about Carol C. Lam, the United States attorney ousted from her job in San Diego, said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. . . ."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/washington/17att...
tracyaphillips said:
April 18, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Hounded by Insurgents, Abandoned by Us
By KIRK W. JOHNSON
Geneva
THE crisis over Iraq’s refugees is the first major policy issue in which Iraqi civilians are front and center. We debate how the surge looks today or how oil will be distributed tomorrow on the banks of a swelling river of human misery: two million Iraqis who couldn’t bear to live in Iraq anymore, and another two million displaced internally but too poor to flee.
This week, representatives from dozens of countries and international nongovernmental organizations have gathered in Geneva to discuss what might be done in the wake of the largest population shift in the Middle East since 1948. The world is asking what George W. Bush, who started the war in Iraq and presides over the country that historically accepts more refugees than any other, will do for these desperate people.
Many of them will most likely be denied refuge in the United States because, under the Patriot and Real ID Acts, they are tarred with having provided material support to terrorists — in the form of ransoms paid to kidnappers to secure a family member’s release. Last month, Congress tried to create a waiver for those who provided material support “under duress.” Lamentably, it was killed by Senator Jon Kyl, who said he’d respond with legislation to “provide relief from terrorism-related immigration bars to ... groups that do not pose a threat to the United States.”
Are we so imprecise in our fifth year of this war that our government cannot distinguish between those who worked and ate alongside us and a member of Al Qaeda?
Consider Rita, an Iraqi Christian woman who worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority and helped manage the TIPS Hotline, which Iraqis can call to share critical information about wanted terrorists or pending attacks on the United States military. Her supervisor, Bernard Kerik, wrote in a recommendation letter that her “courage to support the coalition forces has sent an irrefutable message: that terror will not rule, that liberty will triumph, and that the seeds of freedom will be planted into the great citizens of Iraq.”
But Rita’s courage was repaid by insurgents who abducted her 16-year-old son at gunpoint on his way to school one August morning. Terrorists demanded $600,000 for his release. She doesn’t know how much her husband ultimately paid the kidnappers because he divorced her, blaming her work for the American government for the calamity that had befallen the family. He took her traumatized son and daughter to Syria, and she hasn’t seen or heard from them since. When the death threats became unbearable, she fled to Jordan.
Appallingly, Rita’s family cannot be resettled in the United States because of the material support bar. Unless the secretary of homeland security himself applies a waiver for her, she’ll never reach American soil. Does this woman, who lost everything because she worked for the Americans, who had a security clearance from our government to work in its embassy, pose a threat to the United States? If she does, then who doesn’t?
After all this time, we see hearts and minds as bombs and guns. If we cannot recover such basic distinctions, then we have surely lost more than the war.
Five years before we invaded Iraq, one senator had the remarkable foresight to speak about our responsibility to any Iraqis who might help the United States: “If we would have people in Iraq, or elsewhere in the world, trust us and work with us, then we need to take care that the United States maintains a reputation for trustworthiness and for taking care of its friends.” He was even more direct about what was at stake: “The world will be watching and judging how America treats people who are seen to be on our side. We cannot afford to foster a perception of unfairness that will make it more difficult for the United States to recruit supporters in the future.” So spoke Senator Kyl in 1998.
I thought I had witnessed the depths of our government’s inability to rapidly help Iraqis during the year that I worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Baghdad and Falluja. That was until I went to Washington in February with a list of all of my former Iraqi colleagues who are now refugees because they helped us.
While the State Department bureau in charge of refugee resettlement has been trying feverishly to respond belatedly to the crisis, it is not equipped or authorized to act expeditiously. In her Jan. 16 testimony to the Senate, the assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, Ellen Sauerbrey, said that the plight of Iraq’s refugees was the bureau’s “very top priority.” More than two months later, she reported to the House that it could take six months (and likely longer) before our Iraqi friends might find refuge here.
What kind of superpower can’t convert its “very top priority” into a program that starts saving its allies’ lives before their visas expire and they are forced to return to Iraq? Rita is on my list, which has grown to include hundreds of former colleagues and others who endured similarly shattering fates because they believed in America enough to help us in Iraq. They wonder if they chose poorly when they signed on with us, and they are rapidly losing hope that the United States will offer them a life preserver before it’s too late. Those who paid ransoms for their lives or those of their loved ones are scared to explain in their asylum applications the chief reason they fled their country, because they worry it will disqualify them — a perverse indication of the extent to which our government has lost its way since we invaded.
This is not an issue President Bush can delegate anymore. His bureaucracies are moving perilously slowly. They need the leadership of an American president. How will the United States help those whose belief in us cost them their country? We need to honor the sacrifice of these Iraqis — and start recovering the moral credibility our country forfeits each day they go without our help.
Kirk W. Johnson was the regional coordinator of reconstruction in Falluja in 2005 for the United States Agency for International Development.
Op-Ed Contributor
Hounded by Insurgents, Abandoned by Us
By KIRK W. JOHNSON
Geneva
THE crisis over Iraq’s refugees is the first major policy issue in which Iraqi civilians are front and center. We debate how the surge looks today or how oil will be distributed tomorrow on the banks of a swelling river of human misery: two million Iraqis who couldn’t bear to live in Iraq anymore, and another two million displaced internally but too poor to flee.
This week, representatives from dozens of countries and international nongovernmental organizations have gathered in Geneva to discuss what might be done in the wake of the largest population shift in the Middle East since 1948. The world is asking what George W. Bush, who started the war in Iraq and presides over the country that historically accepts more refugees than any other, will do for these desperate people.
Many of them will most likely be denied refuge in the United States because, under the Patriot and Real ID Acts, they are tarred with having provided material support to terrorists — in the form of ransoms paid to kidnappers to secure a family member’s release. Last month, Congress tried to create a waiver for those who provided material support “under duress.” Lamentably, it was killed by Senator Jon Kyl, who said he’d respond with legislation to “provide relief from terrorism-related immigration bars to ... groups that do not pose a threat to the United States.”
Are we so imprecise in our fifth year of this war that our government cannot distinguish between those who worked and ate alongside us and a member of Al Qaeda?
Consider Rita, an Iraqi Christian woman who worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority and helped manage the TIPS Hotline, which Iraqis can call to share critical information about wanted terrorists or pending attacks on the United States military. Her supervisor, Bernard Kerik, wrote in a recommendation letter that her “courage to support the coalition forces has sent an irrefutable message: that terror will not rule, that liberty will triumph, and that the seeds of freedom will be planted into the great citizens of Iraq.”
But Rita’s courage was repaid by insurgents who abducted her 16-year-old son at gunpoint on his way to school one August morning. Terrorists demanded $600,000 for his release. She doesn’t know how much her husband ultimately paid the kidnappers because he divorced her, blaming her work for the American government for the calamity that had befallen the family. He took her traumatized son and daughter to Syria, and she hasn’t seen or heard from them since. When the death threats became unbearable, she fled to Jordan.
Appallingly, Rita’s family cannot be resettled in the United States because of the material support bar. Unless the secretary of homeland security himself applies a waiver for her, she’ll never reach American soil. Does this woman, who lost everything because she worked for the Americans, who had a security clearance from our government to work in its embassy, pose a threat to the United States? If she does, then who doesn’t?
After all this time, we see hearts and minds as bombs and guns. If we cannot recover such basic distinctions, then we have surely lost more than the war.
Five years before we invaded Iraq, one senator had the remarkable foresight to speak about our responsibility to any Iraqis who might help the United States: “If we would have people in Iraq, or elsewhere in the world, trust us and work with us, then we need to take care that the United States maintains a reputation for trustworthiness and for taking care of its friends.” He was even more direct about what was at stake: “The world will be watching and judging how America treats people who are seen to be on our side. We cannot afford to foster a perception of unfairness that will make it more difficult for the United States to recruit supporters in the future.” So spoke Senator Kyl in 1998.
I thought I had witnessed the depths of our government’s inability to rapidly help Iraqis during the year that I worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Baghdad and Falluja. That was until I went to Washington in February with a list of all of my former Iraqi colleagues who are now refugees because they helped us.
While the State Department bureau in charge of refugee resettlement has been trying feverishly to respond belatedly to the crisis, it is not equipped or authorized to act expeditiously. In her Jan. 16 testimony to the Senate, the assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, Ellen Sauerbrey, said that the plight of Iraq’s refugees was the bureau’s “very top priority.” More than two months later, she reported to the House that it could take six months (and likely longer) before our Iraqi friends might find refuge here.
What kind of superpower can’t convert its “very top priority” into a program that starts saving its allies’ lives before their visas expire and they are forced to return to Iraq? Rita is on my list, which has grown to include hundreds of former colleagues and others who endured similarly shattering fates because they believed in America enough to help us in Iraq. They wonder if they chose poorly when they signed on with us, and they are rapidly losing hope that the United States will offer them a life preserver before it’s too late. Those who paid ransoms for their lives or those of their loved ones are scared to explain in their asylum applications the chief reason they fled their country, because they worry it will disqualify them — a perverse indication of the extent to which our government has lost its way since we invaded.
This is not an issue President Bush can delegate anymore. His bureaucracies are moving perilously slowly. They need the leadership of an American president. How will the United States help those whose belief in us cost them their country? We need to honor the sacrifice of these Iraqis — and start recovering the moral credibility our country forfeits each day they go without our help.
Kirk W. Johnson was the regional coordinator of reconstruction in Falluja in 2005 for the United States Agency for International Development.
lindainks55 said:
Bush isn't sensible enough to know how to address the threat of terrorism. After beginning an unnecessary war he didn't have any idea how to conduct that war of his choice. Still doesn't. He can't handle the current influx of immigrants to America. He has no idea how to handle the immigrants he created in Iraq. He doesn't even seem to understand that he doesn't know, and is in an isolated world that protects him from reality. He has already admitted none of this will be his problem and will be decided by the next president. The failures of this administration will be faced by innocents from the Middle East and Americans for generations to come.
Our only hope is that Americans pay closer attention, get out and vote and replace this guy with someone competent. We must hold our elected officials accountable. We must demand our constitution be upheld, not attacked from within. Our country is in trouble and it will be up to us to save her.
Gster said:
Linda- Well said. Equally important during the next election is for people to get away from the "herd mentality" that drives straight party line voting.
The notion that any given political party has the right ideas, people and solutions forever strictly due to its political affiliation is simply nuts!
More attention needs to be given the candidates and less to the party as a whole. The 2000 election is a good example of what may occurr, IMHO.
The notion that any given political party has the right ideas, people and solutions forever strictly due to its political affiliation is simply nuts!
More attention needs to be given the candidates and less to the party as a whole. The 2000 election is a good example of what may occurr, IMHO.
Vaughn Tolle said:
Following up on my post yesterday. The Eagle reports that the young man involved likely died of "heart failure". The following Wikipedia article discusses Marfan Syndrome, which, as I posted yesterday, has been implicated before in the sudden deaths of athletes, and it seems to me (maybe because I pay a bit more attention to this) basketball players. Note the skeletal clues, if you will; many of these abnormalities would allow the individual to be physically more suited to playing basketball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfan_syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfan_syndrome
tracyaphillips said:
E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Eye-teeth.
The canine teeth are so called because their fangs extend upwards nearly to the orbits of the eyes. 1
To draw one’s eye-teeth. To take the conceit out of a person; to fleece one without mercy; to make one suffer loss without seeing the manœuvre by which it was effected. 2
“I guess these Yanks will get their eye-teeth drawn if they don’t look sharp.”—W. Hepworth Dixon: New America, vol. i.
Eye-teeth.
The canine teeth are so called because their fangs extend upwards nearly to the orbits of the eyes. 1
To draw one’s eye-teeth. To take the conceit out of a person; to fleece one without mercy; to make one suffer loss without seeing the manœuvre by which it was effected. 2
“I guess these Yanks will get their eye-teeth drawn if they don’t look sharp.”—W. Hepworth Dixon: New America, vol. i.
lindainks55 said:
Could it be my ear teeth are blocking my ear canals and that's why I don't hear as well?
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